Read I'll Be Your Everything Online
Authors: J.J. Murray
I'll Be Your Everything (24 page)
He steps closer and puts my legs around his hips. “Are we? We haven’t actually done anything yet. I mean, Corrine went down to Georgia, right?”
And there’s plenty of paper and some receipts to prove it.
“And I’ve been on unpaid leave since leaving Detroit,” he says. “I’m using my own personal camera and equipment. I’m doing all of this on my own time. All you have to do is take some unpaid sick days, and we’re technically doing all of this on our own time.”
I frown. I’ll have to deal with Piper the spitter again. “This sounds so shady.”
He slides me closer. “So is advertising. We’re just using shadiness against itself and to our advantage.”
I hook two fingers into his belt loops. “So let me see if I can get this straight. Corrine returns, I quit, I come back when she throws a fit... .”
He slides me even closer to him, and I have no choice but to lock my vise-gripping legs around him. “Um, then I feed her crappy information, watch her give a crappy presentation, watch your career go up in flames with your poop, and hope Mr. Peterson will still hear us out when the, um, poop clears.”
“Right. It’s the crap.” He slides me even closer, my jeans making squeaking sounds on the table.
“It will never work.”
“It will.” He slides his hands under my booty. “It will.”
Can two pairs of jeans rubbing together down there start a fire? I think I’m about to find out.
“I really like this table, Shari. Solid oak.”
And then we lose our minds for the rest of the evening. I can’t get enough of him. I am like Velcro on that man, and as much as I want to tear off my clothes and his clothes and get down to business, I am having too much fun. On the couch, back to the table, on the floor—everywhere but my bed, even though I steer him there several times.
When we are both exhausted and barely have the strength to kiss and grope, I become his second skin. He turns, I turn. He stands up, I hold on. We become one pair of jeans and one T-shirt, and I can’t let go. Even when we watch him skidding in to home plate thirty-five times, the dust flying just right, his smile infectious, his shoulders blocking out the sun, I don’t let go of him. He cradles me in his arms and rocks me gently on my skinny little couch.
This
is bliss.
is bliss.
But we both decide that the couch isn’t comfortable for both of us. He’s so big that he’s half on and half off, his foot planted on the floor.
“You’re not comfortable, are you?” I ask.
“Not really.”
“My bed is big enough, but I’m a little scared.” I’m a lot scared. My jaw starts to shake, and I can’t make myself say it.
“What’s wrong, Shari?” he asks.
“Um, Tom.” I pull my hands off his chest. I’ll have to explore it some more later. “Do you promise to answer any question I ask you?”
“Sure.”
“And do you promise to answer truthfully?”
“Yes.”
I squint. Hmm. He answered pretty quickly both times, so I guess I believe him. “Do you expect to have ...” Why can’t I say the stupid word? “I know you want to have ... sex.” I finally said it. “With me. Right?”
“Yes.”
C’mon, jaw, stop wiggling. “I want to have sex with you, too, but ... but I’m a little nervous about ... it.” I am so articulate.
“I thought you were going to ask me some questions.”
Oh yeah. “Did you and Corrine have a lot of sex?”
He blinks. “Define ‘a lot.’”
“Um, did you ... have sex ... every time you were ... together?”
“For the first three years, yes. Every time. After that, only on special occasions like her birthday or the anniversaries that only she celebrated.”
Every time. For three years. Hmm. “Um, would you say that your relationship with Corrine was based on sex?”
“Yes.”
That was clear enough. “And was the sex ...” I can’t ask that.
“Was it good?”
“It’s none of my business.” But tell me anyway. I’m not that experienced. It’s only been Bryan.
“Define ‘good,’” he says.
When was it ever “good” with Bryan? “Um, fulfilling, um ... meaningful.”
“For three years, it was good.”
“How good?” escapes my lips before I can stop it.
He laughs. “Do you want the play-by-play?”
I shake my head quickly. “No, um. That won’t be necessary.” I slide off him to the other end of the couch, slipping my legs under me. “Tom, I’ve only been with Bryan. I’m worried that ... I want to satisfy you.” Every time.
“I am so satisfied right now,” he says. “These last few days have been more meaningful to me, and without sex, than all those years with Corrine. Perhaps I should tell you more about Corrine and me.”
“Just not the play-by-play.” Although I might learn a few pointers.
“I’ll describe a typical date, okay?”
I nod.
“I pick her up in a rental car, something European. She wears something, um, revealing.”
This is nothing that I didn’t know.
“Um,
very
revealing.”
very
revealing.”
Okay, easy access. No draws, bra. That would explain her stretch marks.
“We’d go to some function or other, she’d flirt, network, flaunt her body, and when it was over, we’d go back to her place.” He shakes his head. “Um, just use your imagination for the rest.”
My imagination is running wild right now. There’s so much I don’t know! “Just ... tell me ... a few ... things.”
“Um, how ...” He winces. “She has some ... tastes.”
I’m almost relaxing. He’s having as much trouble telling me as I’m having asking him to tell me. “She was ... into things?”
He nods. “Yeah. Um ...” He shakes his head again. “She had certain ... needs.”
Now I have to know. “Needs such as ...”
“I am so embarrassed to tell you this,” he says. “Um, she needed to wear interesting undergarments.”
He’s so cute! “Like sexy lingerie?”
“Um, well ... she’d put them on, and I’d have to tear them off.”
Only used once. What a waste of money! Flannel! Get flannel! “What else?”
He looks away. “Um, rope. On her, not me.”
Corrine liked to be dominated? I can’t believe it! “You tied her up?”
He shakes his head. “She tied herself up.”
No danger in that. She knew what knots she used. “What else?” This is actually pretty educational. “Did she use any ... toys?”
He nods.
Okay. Single woman. Lonely. What’s the fuss?
“And ... um ...” He slaps the couch.
I blink. “Spanking?”
He nods.
Okay, I think I’ve heard enough. Corrine likes risky sex. She likes to be dominated. She likes to be hit.
“Not hard,” Tom says. “Once or twice would usually, um, do the trick.”
I crawl across the couch and rest my head in his lap. “And which excited you the most?”
He winces. “The last one.” He blinks at me, and I blink at him.
“And that turned her on?” I ask.
He looks down. “It usually, um, turned her off, um, finished her, if you know what I mean.”
So Corrine “finishes” because of booty slaps. Interesting.
“And, um, smacking her booty excited you, too?”
He nods.
I hold out my hand. “C’mon.”
He doesn’t move. “Where are we going?”
“Just stand up.”
He stands, and I hug him. “Thank you for your honesty.”
“You’re welcome.”
I look up into his eyes. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you haven’t had much sex in two years.”
“Um, about five times.”
That’s so sad. “And I, um, really haven’t had anyone, um, make love to me.” It was just the act to Bryan. I want to know what it
should
feel like. “But ...”
should
feel like. “But ...”
He nods. “But.”
“I want it to be special.”
He smiles. “So do I.” He exhales. “Wow. You had me worried.”
I widen my eyes. “I had you worried?”
“Yeah. I was so worried that I wouldn’t satisfy you.”
Him not satisfy me? Is he kidding? He has to be kidding.
“Shari, I don’t want sex to ever come between us,” he says. “I don’t want sex to ruin what we’ve got going.”
Oh. Hmm. “You don’t want to have a sexual relationship?”
“No, I mean, yes, I mean ... I want something that is going to last.”
I hug him tighter. “But you do want me ... sexually.”
“Yes, but mostly emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. I want to be your best friend first.”
I can’t hug him any tighter. “You’re, um, if I had to pick a best friend right now at this moment, it would have to be you.”
“Thank you.”
We both look at the couch. “Well, you can’t sleep out on this couch.”
“I can try.”
I take his hand. “We’ll figure something out.” I lead him into my bedroom and push him onto the bed. “I have an idea.” I go to my closet and pull out a white bedsheet. “I like watching old movies, old romantic comedies to be specific. Ever see
It Happened One Night
?”
It Happened One Night
?”
He smiles. “Yes. Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.”
He’s seen it? And he remembers their names. I thought I was good at remembering names. “Remember the motel scene?”
He nods. “A classic.”
“Let’s do it.”
For several minutes, I feed Tom thumbtacks and he attaches the sheet to the ceiling and leaves a foot wide “smile” at the top. The sheet divides my bed in two with only a foot or so of fabric resting on the bed. I run around and take the lamp shades off the lamps on both nightstands.
“But I’ll be able to see you, Shari,” he says.
“And I’ll be able to see you,” I say, “but there’s a wall between us.”
“The wall of Jericho,” he says. “Can you sleep with the lights on?”
I shrug. “I’ve never tried it.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he says.
I like this man very much.
We position ourselves on our sides of the room. I remove my bra under my shirt and drape it over the top of the curtain. He takes off his shirt and tosses it through the gap. I take off my pants and put on some flannel pajama bottoms. He takes off his pants. Shoot. Why did I have to buy four-hundred-count sheets? I mean, I can see most of him just fine, but ... I like details.
We count to three and pull back the top cover together, slide into our respective sides, and just lie there.
“Shari?”
Oh yeah. Gable and Colbert talked through the “wall.” I giggle. “Yes, Tom?”
“You have a very nice body.”
“So do you.” What I’ve seen of it.
“Um, I like it best when you turn sideways.”
I blush. “Hey now.”
“Um, if I reach across—”
“Not allowed,” I interrupt. “You can’t put your hand through a wall.”
He’s silent for a moment. “But what if there’s a little hole in the wall, just big enough for my hand to go through, and I just happen to, I don’t know, reach my hand through to hold your hand?”
My heart, my heart. “I think I see a hole, Tom.”
I feel the bed shift slightly and then feel a hand on my thigh. “Oops,” he says.
He’s so cute. “Higher.”
His hand crawls up my leg and I grab it before he can do any more damage. “You have a soft hand, Shari.”
“You have a very big hand, Tom.” Oh man. “Are you an active sleeper, Tom?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
I hope you are, man. I pull his hand up to my lips and kiss it. “Good night, Tom.”
“Good night, Shari.”
I have to use both hands to hold his big hand, mainly because it seems to have a mind of its own. Oh, I move it around a little, too, but I will never get any sleep if I keep this up. I push his hand away. “I have repaired the hole in the wall.”
“You’re quite an engineer,” he says.
I sit up and pull the “wall” tight against my body. “Give me a good night kiss.”
He sits up and moves his body next to mine. How thick is this sheet, a couple of millimeters? And yet I feel every inch of him against me. I put my lips against the sheet, he puts his lips on mine, and we both fall back to our pillows.
I last maybe another minute before I slide my hand across to his side. “My hand is cold, Tom.”
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